Tektronix announces a partnership with geolocation optimisation specialist Groundhog to add a geolocation monitoring application as part of its OptiMon suite.
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MWC – ZTE and 3 present 3Meganetwork with ten times more capacity
3 and technology partner ZTE have presented the new Austrian 3Meganetwork at Mobile World Congress. By upgrading the entire 3G Austria network to the latest dual-carrier HSPA+ technology, 3 offers its customers speeds of up to 42 Mbps and a tenfold increase in network capacity. Already 50 percent of the Austrian population can benefit from the faster 3Meganetwork. By autumn 2011, the entire network will offer HSPA+ coverage to 94 percent of the Austrian population. Additionally, 3 is preparing the network for the 4th generation of mobile networks, LTE, whose rollout in urban areas will start later this year.
“Now 3 has the frequencies, the technology and data transfer rates for optimal use of state-of-the-art smartphones, innovative multimedia services and nationwide high speed broadband Internet,” said 3 CEO Jan Trionow.
Austrian users will benefit from the upgrade in a number of ways. The 3Meganetwork provides perfect conditions for the use of multimedia services. Smooth, HD quality videos can be enjoyed everywhere and at any time. With the 3Videothek and 3MobileTV services, 3 provides a generous selection of high quality content.
3 data customers will benefit significantly from the network upgrade. They will enjoy remarkably faster transfer speeds and a tenfold increase in capacity, at the usual low prices and with the high flexibility of mobile broadband.
“This is an immediately noticeable improvement of service for our customers. We offer blanket access to the best broadband internet in Austria. Together with ZTE, we were able to realise the modernisation of our network under excellent conditions. For us, this is a major cost advantage that we pass on to our customers in the form of cheaper tariffs,” said Trionow.
With the new 3Meganetwork, 3 is responding to recent developments in mobile networks. “The traffic is growing at enormous rates. Above all, videos are the major driver of this development and now represent the largest share of total data transfers. In the past five years, we have recorded an increase of 1,000 percent. This means that the 3Meganetwork currently transmits over 1 petabyte per month – more than any other mobile network in Austria,” said Trionow.
The huge popularity of mobile broadband Internet – already 43.8 percent of all internet accesses in Austria are mobile – and the increasingly intensive usage of high-bandwidth services are causing this significant increase. In 2010 the average data user consumed almost 3 GB per month – back in 2006 it was only 600 MB per month.
Furthermore, smartphone usage results in higher demand on mobile networks. “2010 can be called the year of the smartphones. About 80 percent of our new customers opted for a smartphone,” explained Trionow. The 3Superphone tariffs, which are tailored to the strengths of modern handsets and come with an unlimited data volume, have been especially popular. Additionally, 3 offers the best phones of its portfolio starting at 0 Euro with these tariffs.
Last year the mobile operator realised a customer growth of 26 percent and now has more than a million customers.
“With our new 3Meganetwork we offer our customers perfect performance, and we strengthen our competitive position at the same time. We have created ideal conditions to continue our rapid growth in the years to come, ” Trionow concluded.
MWC – Huawei announces WAC enabled app store
Huawei today announced the launch of the first global commercial WAC enabled app store and mobile phone with the Philippines carrier, Smart Communications. The solution is fully compliant with the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC)’s 1.0 specifications – an alliance of telecommunications companies committed to building an open applications platform, which is said to provide carriers with a unified service platform that aggregates mobile internet applications, enables more revenue generation and ultimately delivers a better cloud-based service experience to end users.
WAC is an application delivery center with applications submitted by global developers. The platform provides opportunities for global developers to create, synchronize and sell applications using standard and open Application Programmable Interfaces (APIs). It also helps carriers maintain sustainable competitive advantages through transforming themselves from a walled-garden approach to applications development to one that fosters innovation and ease of execution based on a global mobile ecosystem paradigm.
“Huawei is fully supportive of WAC and its vision and is committed to continue to develop and deliver the right applications development platform in alignment with WAC specifications for our member carriers and applications developers,” said Dr. Haiping Che, CTO and Vice President of Huawei Software. “We were honored that SMART has chosen us to be their strategic partner for the rollout of its applications store this year, which represents the first commercial use of the platform.”
The practice of carrier members linking to the application value chain only at the beginning and at the terminus is now a thing of the past. Our industry leading end-to-end solution of WAC revolutionized the entire experience, bringing about a paradigmatic shift in positioning carrier members as a link anywhere in the applications value chain by enabling app store, settlement platform, gateway and mobile devices such as Android. Under this paradigm, global developers can now access a common set of network APIs across all carriers’ networks, including powerful network functions such as location-based service, messaging services (SMS/MMS) and in-application billing to enhance stickiness and other features of the applications. This will be a boon to application development lifecycle, modularity, engineering efforts and reusability of modules.
Carriers can also look to and leverage the capabilities that a WAC enabled settlement platform delivers to fulfill their needs for full partner lifecycle management, ranging partner registration, to settlement, payment and reporting. These modular functionalities, coupled with the built-in product and customer intelligence, are working together seamlessly to foster an applications development environment that enables the developers to focus on creating innovative and compelling end-user applications, and for the operators to shorten time-to-market and remain competitive in their respective countries.
Mesaplexx helps deliver 3G to LMT in Latvia
Radio spectrum optimisation company, Mesaplexx, today announced that it has provided LMT, said to be Latvia’s leading operator, with a spectrum optimisation solution for the roll out 3G services to its rural customers.
LMT (part of the TeliaSonera Group) was established in 1992, as Latvia’s first network provider. LMT delivers network coverage throughout the country, which includes many extensive rural and sparsely habited regions.
In 2009, as part of LMT’s 3G coverage expansion plans, the decision was taken to redeploy parts of the existing GSM network to UMTS 900, in order to provide faster and more effective subscriber services. As many of LMT’s subscribers would continue to use the GSM network, great care had to be taken to ensure minimal disruption to the network whilst undertaking the coverage expansion project.
LMT turned to spectrum optimisation specialist Mesaplexx, to find a solution that enabled the refarming of the spectrum with the best performance characteristics that also met their customer requirements for little or no network downtime. LMT had considered deploying a solution of new TMAs (Tower Mounted Amplifiers) to refarm the spectrum. However, while deploying these may have slightly extended each base station’s range, the cost of deployment, coupled with the labour intensive installation would have resulted in a slow and sluggish deployment.
Mesaplexx proposed an alternative solution – a roll out of low-loss UMTS/GSM 900 spectrum combiners, throughout the network. These combiners negated the need for TMAs, whilst maximising the range and performance of each cell site.
The Mesaplexx combiners met LMT’s stringent performance demands on UMTS and GSM separation, with the absolute minimal loss or inefficiency per cell site. The small footprint of each combiner made it ideal for smaller, cramped sites and enabled it to be deployed through all of LMT’s chosen indoor and outdoor site configurations. Installation was fast, efficient and was able to be carried out with minimal disruption to the network. Mesaplexx combiners also proved to be smaller, more efficient and better performing than other solutions evaluated by LMT.
Eliminating the need for new antennas and deploying Mesaplexx’s low loss combiners has proven to be 50 – 60 per cent more cost effective than deploying new antennas and feeders. The Mesaplexx combiner solution has enabled LMT to best serve its rural customers with a full 3G service, with minimal infrastructure requirements and disturbance to the GSM network.
While the solution is still being deployed at present, in those areas where the Mesaplexx combiners have been deployed, customer feedback has been extremely positive, enabling LMT to maintain its position as the number one mobile provider in Latvia.
Viesturs Beinars, Head of Networks at LMT said: “Working with Mesaplexx has not only enabled us to roll out our 3G network quickly and cost-effectively, but the minimised network disruption has ensured our customers remain extremely happy with the service we provide, ensuring we remain the number one operator in the region. Deploying the low-cost and efficient Mesaplexx filters and combiners means we can continue to offer our customers the best value 3G price plans in the country.”
Mark Bole, CEO at Mesaplexx, comments: “The solution delivered to LMT has proven to be up to 60 per cent more cost effective than deploying dedicated antennas and feeders. Our combiners had to meet stringent performance demands on UMTS and GSM separation set by LMT, while ensuring that the coverage and capacity was maximised for each cell site.”
MWC – Airwide announces IPm messaging solution
Airwide Solutions, the leading provider of next-generation mobile messaging and security solutions, has announced the successful trials and planned launch of IPm, Airwide’s IP messaging solution. IPm has been developed and trialled collaboratively with several of the world’s leading mobile operators to provide a practical means to introduce support for SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol)-based messaging services in both dedicated or cloud deployments. Full commercial availability is planned for Q4 of this year.
As LTE (Long Term Evolution) is now achieving significant levels of deployment and a growing number of devices are being LTE enabled, mobile operators now have to make strategic decisions about how to offer seamless services across current and future network environments without disrupting established and finely tuned messaging services.
With its unique combination of expertise and technology, Airwide has long been recognized as the leading partner of mobile operators to deploy network enhancements that enable cost control while protecting the operator’s investment in highly successful messaging networks. In addition to protecting the financial investments that operators have made, Airwide’s IPm helps operators to protect messaging revenues that are expected to exceed $190 billion this year and also to protect the highly developed relationship they have with their subscribers. IPm helps operators to realize the cost reduction and service enhancement potential of IP.
Unlike alternative solutions that are based solely on a single standard, IPm recognizes the flexibility that operators require to make investments today without knowing which standards or specifications will emerge in the future, by providing a standards-agnostic approach. This flexibility is further extended by enabling IPm functionality to be deployed with dedicated infrastructure or in a cloud configuration. The IPm solution incorporates critical functionality, including business logic, connectivity components, application server and storage elements in a unique, scalable and highly flexible solution. Additionally, the IPm solution incorporates innovative messaging security functionality including content filtering, address validation and user control to fully enable operators to protect their networks and subscribers from rapidly increasing mobile malware threats. Airwide delivers this functionality using its comprehensive portfolio developed through nearly two decades working with mobile operators, as well as incorporating multi-vendor functionality to meet customer needs.
“Working with some of the world’s leading and most forward looking operators on the development and trials of IPm produced key learnings that have been incorporated into this solution” stated Airwide’s SVP of Solutions and Product Management, Adrian Kelly. “It is clear that there is not one standard that operators can plan to and therefore there is a tremendous need for flexibility. It is critically important that the seamless and universal user experience that has made mobile messaging one of the most successful, ubiquitous and compelling services be preserved as operators introduce IP capabilities.”
MWC – Survey indicates 87% of mobile operators view 4G transformation and policy as critical to resolving mobile data congestion
Bridgewater Systems, specialist in intelligent broadband controls, today announced immediate results from a survey conducted live on the show floor at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. During the first two days of the show, Bridgewater surveyed mobile operators to uncover their opinions on how to manage mobile data growth in the next 12 months.
Indicators from show floor reveal 87% of mobile operators surveyed ranked 4G transformation and /or policy control as key solution approaches to solving mobile data network congestion.
In comparison, service providers are increasingly reluctant to simply add costly network capacity, with only 18% of the operators surveyed indicating that this would be a primary tool for managing network congestion in the next 3 years.
David Sharpley, Senior Vice President, Bridgewater Systems said: “This live research on the show floor at ‘the must-attend annual gathering of the mobile industry’ validates the importance of policy and 4G network transformation as key topics of interest at Mobile World Congress 2011. Policy control continues to remain a key capability for operators to manage mobile data growth, while the introduction of 4G is regarded as a key and complementary strategy as operators evolve their networks.”
MWC – WeDo Technologies and Meucci Solutions announce joint roaming offering
WeDo Technologies, a specialist in revenue and business assurance solutions, today announced it has signed a joint partnership with Meucci Solutions, the Belgian specialist in quality monitoring systems between mobile networks, to deliver a new Roaming Managed Service. The partnership will enable mobile network operators to manage the entire lifecycle of roaming business, from roaming implementation managing roaming agreements to TAP creation/exchange and roaming QoS.
The service is using the Roambroker technology platform of WeDo Technologies onto which Meucci Solutions has grafted a full service layer. The service offers operators peace of mind enabling them to focus on the roaming strategy and business priorities while the implementation and technical management are done by Meucci Solutions.
With the Roambroker software, WeDo Technologies already offers operators a central roaming system covering the daily operations of a roaming agreement. Its extensive pricing module enables the creation of very flexible rating plans, but is also the engine for many Value Added Services (such as roaming retail rating, IOT check, invoicing…).
Meucci Solutions adds its expertise as service provider in Roaming Implementation and Roaming QoS and embeds the software in a service layer generating extra revenue thanks to a shorter time-to-market. The partnership allows Meucci Solutions to provide the market with a complete flow of roaming services from setting up and testing new roaming agreements, over managing the dialy roaming operations, to monitoring Quality of Service
Rui Paiva, Chief Executive Officer at WeDo Technologies, said: “The partnership with Meucci Solutions will bring innovation to the roaming arena: WeDo Technologies’ roaming management software managed by Meucci’s roaming service experts. This managed service will offer the mobile operators a new way to get more revenue from their roaming operations, to easily handle TAP files, IOTs and retail tariffs and to find a solution to the lack of roaming expert resources”
Conrad Tuytte, Chief Executive Officer at Meucci Solutions, added: “Every operator is moving towards buying services in a hosted model. Our joint offer helps operators to improve their cash flow position as the service is not to be seen as a major investment requiring up front payment but as an operational cost invoiced on a monthly basis. The solution presented by our companies will prove to be extremely compelling in the market. ”
Exclusive roundtable debate – Have operators hit a home run with tiered pricing?
Will the introduction of tiered data pricing be a successful step towards closing the gap between data revenues and usage? How can operators best communicate with their customers to allow simplicity, but also personalisation; flexibility, but also clarity?
At Mobile World Congress 2011, Mobile Europe and Redknee hosted a discussion to debate the opportunities, challenges and future direction of tiered pricing. The debate brought together operators, a leading analyst and a leading provider of operator-focussed solutions.
Discover how Telefonica views the transition to tiered data pricing and the opportunities it gives them for customer interaction; hear how and why US MVNO I-Wireless made the change from flat rate to tiered pricing; and hear what future capabilities operators will be able to exploit to enable more profitable and customer-focussed mobile data services.
Host: Keith Dyer, Editor, Mobile Europe
Panelists: Tanya Field, Director, Mobile Data Group, Telefonica; Patrick McDonough, GM, I-Wireless; Mark Newman, Chief Research Officer, Mobile Operator Strategies, InformaTM; Lucas Skoczkowski, CEO, Redknee
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MWC – Ericsson says first CDMA 450MHz EVDO Rev B commercial network successfully deployed
Ericsson has successfully deployed the first commercial CDMA 450MHz EVDO Rev B network in Scandinavia with Net1 / ice.net., and is said to demonstrate Ericsson’s ongoing commitment to strengthen the 450MHz eco-system.
The technology supports the intensifying market demand for greater data throughput and increased network efficiency, offering quality mobile broadband capability for residential and business users.
With CDMA EVDO Rev B, users can achieve higher data rates with download speeds of up to 9.3 Mbits per second and upload speeds of up to 5.4 Mbits per second. This solution enables more effective broadband services and delivers existing applications more efficiently.
“We are very pleased with this development on our CDMA 450MHz network. Now, we can enhance our mobile broadband service offerings to our customer base in Scandinavia,” says Net1 COO, Gösta Kallner.
CDMA 450MHz technology provides a cost-effective coverage solution within a standardized international frequency band. With the addition of EVDO Rev B, operators can provide an improved mobile broadband user experience.
An Ericsson spokesperson said: “Ericsson continues to evolve its CDMA portfolio to support requirements for higher mobile broadband data rates. This unlocks network capabilities and machine-to-machine opportunities to further support Ericsson’s vision of the networked society. Ericsson is pleased to jointly innovate with Net1 to drive new broadband offerings.”
MWC – Telefónica O2 Germany selects Nokia Siemens Networks as a network technology partner for LTE
Telefónica O2 Germany will launch Long Term Evolution (LTE) in the coming months, having selected Nokia Siemens Networks as one of two suppliers for the rollout, using both 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz frequency bands. The deployment will begin with rural ‘white spots’ followed by urban areas.
“Finally the time has come: LTE is bringing fast Internet to the country. Thanks to our high speeds, customers in rural regions can now also watch videos online, download large data packages and play computer games,” said René Schuster, CEO of Telefónica O2 Germany. “Covering these ‘white spots’ is only the first step. As soon as the requirements of the Federal Network Agency are being fulfilled, we will also offer LTE800 in the cities. This could even happen in only a few months.”
“Efficient broadband deployment is a clear indicator of a country’s economic growth,” said Bosco Novák, head of customer operations west, Nokia Siemens Networks. “We are committed to supporting our customers in their LTE plans across different spectrum bands. Our LTE solution for Telefónica O2 Germany complements the operator’s existing offering of high-speed wireless and wireline data services.”
Under the three-year contract, Nokia Siemens Networks will install its Flexi Multiradio Base Stations to implement the LTE sites in large parts of Germany. Nokia Siemens Networks has a large services workforce in Germany – close to 3,000 experts – to ensure a speedy and quality network launch using its comprehensive implementation and project management services. It will also provide a full set of hardware and software maintenance services. Nokia Siemens Networks’ network management software, NetAct, is also part of the overall offering.
In addition, Nokia Siemens Networks will continue to expand and maintain Telefónica O2 Germany’s 2G/3G network, and continue to provide turnkey services across Germany to ensure service quality irrespective of data traffic growth.
